


once and for all

by laireshi



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Angst, Incest, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-10-30 06:16:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20809907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi
Summary: Dante defeated Urizen before V could stop him. Faced with a dying V, he chose to bind their lives together.This was not the right choice.





	once and for all

**Author's Note:**

> Please mind the tags. Also! Hey there, 300th fic!

He’s too late.

Nero all but drags him to where Dante’s standing over Vergil’s demon, his sword deep in his chest, but V’s legs stop moving; his chest aches. Dante turns to look at him and there’s a well of guilt in his eyes like it fucking means anything.

V forces his legs to obey him for just a little longer. He pushes Nero away, leans on his cane. He’ll face his brother standing or not at all. 

“Shouldn’t you be proud?” he drawls. “Not many people can claim to have committed fratricide _twice_.”

Dante flinches. He doesn’t look well; covered in a multitude of bruises and cuts, too exhausted for them to heal immediately—but he will rest, and he will get better, and he will get on with his life the way he always does.

The way Vergil never could. 

“What, not even _thank you_?” he asks, but his voice is empty. “I did what you asked for once.”

“Is that what you think?” V asks back. It’s all over; he’s got maybe minutes. No point in secrets now, when he’s lost so completely again.

Dante’s eyes roam over V and he frowns, looking between him and the demon he’s vanquished. He’s never been stupid, V’s little brother. “You can’t survive without him.”

V would laugh at him if he didn’t think he’d end up coughing. “Did you hope for that? A way to alleviate your misplaced guilt, perhaps?”

He’s so weak, trembling all over, but the look of naked pain on Dante’s face still fills him with grim satisfaction. He scans the battlefield, looking for the only thing that matters, but she’s too far—sheathed and beautiful next to the demon’s body. 

V’s never deserved her. It figures he’ll die without her again.

He tries anyway. One step; another—

He falls; Dante catches him. V’s never hated him more than in this moment, but it doesn’t last long.

He slips into the darkness that’s followed him ever since he was born.

***

Waking up is an unsettling process. 

First, there’s the fact that he wakes _at all_. He’s not a naive kid; he has an intimate knowledge of what dying feels like. He knows _he_ was dying. But he wakes all the same. His body doesn’t ache. He’s not tired. He feels . . . not whole, never whole, but no longer falling apart, either. 

He opens his eyes to see Dante kneeling next to him, his wrist bloody—V looks at his own arm and sees blood on it too, a thin scar forming on his flesh from a wound that shouldn’t have healed. He looks around them and realises they’re both in the middle of a magic circle, all of its lines double, which means it is a binding circle.

A binding circle with him and Dante in the centre of it, and both their wrists bloodied—

“You did not,” he gasps out, shock reverberating through his body. 

Dante just smiles, tired but clearly relieved. “Wasn’t sure it’d work,” he says. “This is more your kind of thing.”

V sits up. He can do so easily now, when before even act so simple as that made him breathe faster, his muscles protest. “What’s wrong with you?” he demands.

Dante’s smile doesn’t fade. “I decided to save my brother’s life for once. You’re welcome.”

_You call this life?_

V doesn’t say the words out loud because he won’t have Dante realise just how pathetic his half-existence is, how unwanted, how dreaded. He’d longed to be reunited with himself, and Dante had stolen that from him. An irresponsible little brother who never thought to consider the consequences of his actions. He wanted something and he took it throughout all of Vergil’s life: first his toys, then his life and the amulet that his mother gave him, and now . . . now even his freedom.

Their lives are bound together. Dante might not realise what it means or might not care, but while V wanted to live more than anything—he didn’t want to live at _any _cost; he didn’t want to live at Dante’s mercy.

Nor as _V_.

But this choice, like so many others, was taken from him.

“You killed my—Vergil’s demon. You _saved me_.” V forces himself to smirk. “Do you consider that your atonement?”

Dante turns his back on him. “I’m not a naive child, V.”

V stands up. He doesn’t get dizzy, his knees don’t want to bend underneath him. He can stand straight, the way Vergil always did. His cane is next to him, but he ignores it—there, just outside the circle they’re in, lies the Yamato, the one thing Dante will never take from him (if only because no matter how weak Vergil might get, she will never be anyone else’s; even hidden within another’s arm, she remained Vergil’s only). He walks to her, his body alive in a way he’d almost forgotten. He picks her up.

He can’t hear her.

His breath catches in his throat. He runs his fingers down the Yamato’s sheath, his other hand closed around her hilt, and he can’t hear her in his head; he can’t sense her sliding around his consciousness, he can’t feel her gentle reassurance. Her weight isn’t familiar, either: he is no longer dying, but he _is_ human, his strength not even close to what he used to be. But—he still recognises the smooth slide of her sheath, the texture of the hilt; he thumbs at the tsuba and breathes a sigh of relief as it’s the same sensation he remembers from countless occasions. 

It doesn’t have the same calming effect on him now, though. It helps to hold her—of course it does—but without her presence, the way he’d gotten used to . . . He could be holding a perfect replica and never know the difference.

He could be back in Mundus’ grasp—or maybe he’d never left it, wrapped in one torturous illusion or another. This moment, right now, is a perfect nightmare. V can’t tell if it’s real, not like that. Not without the Yamato.

Even his demon could use the Yamato. He’d discarded V and stolen the Yamato from him, used her as his shield, and now . . . V had thought Dante couldn’t take her from him, but he was wrong. If he’s too human to hear her, does she even still recognise him?

He clutches the Yamato to his chest, but there is no answer in his heart.

***

Dante’s home and office in one isn’t any more hospitable when they return to it. V isn’t sure if the spell Dante used would let them separate for a longer amount of time without it being detrimental to both of them, but he doesn’t regret not analysing the magic circle further. He can sense Dante, a presence at the edge of his consciousness, not quite like the way he could feel him when he was still himself, but not completely unlike it, either. It’s not unpleasant. It would be better if it were.

He hates being near Dante; he can’t imagine being apart from Dante. Hasn’t it always been like this?

“So,” Dante says.

He’s not like the Dante V remembers, not really. He’s not the man who killed him and not the teenager who promised to do so. In a way, he’s their exact opposite, keeping a part of Vergil alive against all odds. 

If only he’d killed Vergil back when he’d made that promise. The end result will be the same, eventually, and it would’ve spared V so much pain. 

“You want a tour?” Dante asks.

“I hardly think I could get lost.”

“Have it your way.”

V almost laughs, bitterness raising in him. Like that ever happens.

Dante orders them both two boxes of greasy pizza later. V eats it, disgusted and yet without protesting. When he was born to his human body, he was frail and sick, but he had hope, a goal in mind: defeat Urizen; become himself again.

He’s not dying anymore thanks to Dante’s strength flowing through him; condemned to a life as a human until—

Until what, exactly, he wonders, and can’t imagine another minute like this.

“A man can't soar too high, when he flies with his own wings,” he whispers to himself. He’s lost his wings: he’s now falling, too fast to salvage anything.

Dante tilts his head questioningly. V sighs. 

***

Dante’s lips on his make blood rush through his ears; Dante’s hands roam over his body, trying to undress him.

Time to remind little brother of his place. V steps out of his embrace. 

“Too much?” Dante asks, cocking an eyebrow.

V looks him in the eyes, holds his gaze. He’s perfectly silent; lets his body speak for him. Dante’s breath visibly quickens. V smiles. Dante licks his lips.

V doesn’t have to say a thing. Dante drops to his knees and begs ever so nicely.

***

V wanders around Dante’s town. He cannot use the Yamato to travel to any place in the world anymore, but then there isn’t anywhere he would truly like to see, not in a weak human body he hates. 

Demons come into existence out of nowhere. Even kept alive by Dante’s demonic power, V does not have enough of his own to sense them. His familiars defeat them without a problem; V cuts them down with the Yamato and doesn’t dodge the demon blood spraying on his face.

He used to feel alive in a fight.

He walks back to what certainly isn’t home.

***

Another evening with pizza that V doesn’t care for passes. Dante chews on his slice for too long when he usually all but inhales the food. V looks at him questioningly.

“Are you planning to do anything about Nero?” Dante asks at last.

V raises an eyebrow. “What is there to do? The boy is aware now that I was the one who tore his arm off, isn’t he?”

Dante sighs. “He’s your _son_.”

V frowns. Nero is Sparda’s kin, that much he’s certain of, but he’d been operating under the assumption that he was Dante’s kid. Dante wouldn’t try to push that responsibility on him, though, and . . . V does remember a certain visit in Fortuna. It is feasible, and changes absolutely nothing at this point.

“Is he now?” V taps the Yamato. “Am I the father figure you’d want him to have? A man responsible for the deaths of thousands?”

Dante closes his hands into fists. “He’s—”

“A good kid,” V finishes for him, so overwhelmingly tired. “He deserves better than me, Dante.”

Dante cannot argue that point.

***

Dante comes back from the hunt without a scratch, bloodlust written all over his face: lesser demons would never be enough to sate him. To think that he is the one who longs to be human; laughable. He looks at where V is sitting with the Yamato across his lap.

He doesn't ask, maybe because even Dante's demon, so close to the surface now, realises that V would never forgive him if he did.

Ironic, for Dante to find out that who he needs is Vergil with all his lethal edges and blood-stained hands, the true Vergil, the one equal parts demon and human who can take anything and everything Dante is—not his shadow in V's shape; that he spent all those years wishing that Vergil had been more human, only to see that's not what Dante craves at all.

That Dante is as miserable as him is V's only solace.

(Vergil and Dante were meant to be together, two halves of one soul, only ever complete side by side; Dante will never feel whole with V for V is only half of what he lacks—V suspects that Dante would be enough for him, though, if it weren't for his own fractured being.

They can't ever fix what they lack.)

“Vergil,” Dante whispers, soft and absolutely, splendidly broken, and V shakes his head at him.

“Don't call me that,” he orders, and Dante's eyes widen, no hint of understanding in his expression. “I'm not who you want me to be. I'm not who I want to be, either. All thanks to you, brother.” A bitter smile. “Don't fool yourself into thinking that Vergil is alive, Dante.”

Dante looks at him for a long quiet moment, scanning his face as if looking for a lie.

Then he turns and leaves, all without a word. V sighs and clutches at the Yamato. She’s still silent, and she’s all he’s got left.

When Dante comes back again, he’s covered in blood, indubitably his own, and he doesn’t try to speak to V.

***

Dante is a sweaty, shivering mess underneath V. V smiles down at him and stops moving.

“_Please_,” escapes Dante’s lips. His pupils are blown wide, and yet he manages to look at V with something like misplaced devotion for the man V used to be. 

There’s a scar on his chest, a reminder of a lifetime gone by. V traces its edges with his fingers. “I thought waking your demon would _help _you.”

But the only thing that might’ve saved Dante from ruin was if Vergil had never been born. It’s quite clear, now, everything they’ve destroyed in each other.

Dante looks like he’s about to say something. V slides his fingers inside his mouth instead, effectively silencing him, and snaps his hips again. 

Sex intimates closeness, but V is nowhere near naive enough to believe that. 

***

Dante gets off the phone with Nero and sighs. “I gotta head back to Red Grave.”

“Revisiting all the good memories, brother?” V asks.

Dante’s desk creaks dangerously where he’s holding it. “Demons keep showing up. It’s just ruins, but they get out, looking for humans.”

V pinches the bridge of his nose, a terrible idea dawning in his mind. “Is the Qliphoth still standing?”

“It disappeared,” Dante says, but he sounds uncertain.

“It doesn’t mean it has fallen.” V considers it. Maybe it isn’t a terrible thing after all. Maybe it’s the blessing they so desperately need. “Someone needs to severe the Qliphoth roots from the human realm, Dante,” he says at last, meeting Dante’s eyes. “It cannot be done from this side.”

There’s nothing but quiet understanding in Dante’s face. “Finish this once and for all, huh.”

V lets himself smile. For the first time in a long while, it feels honest. He nods.

***

Cutting down the Qliphoth is anticlimactic. It doesn’t fight them, because it recognises one of them as its master.

(Not V, of course, not in his unwanted human body; just one more instance of Dante taking what’s his.)

“Is it done?” Dante asks.

“Yes.” 

He moves to embrace V; V lets them both have this moment. He feels almost safe in Dante’s arms. An asinine sentiment that he should’ve grown out of. If Dante had ever dreamt of protecting him the way Vergil had wished to protect Dante, well. They should both admit defeat. 

At least they’re together here, at the end. 

“I am sorry, little brother.”

Dante’s breath hitches. “Never thought I’d hear the words,” he mutters into V’s hair. “But. So am I. And it’s over.”

The Yamato is at V’s side. He can’t bid her farewell, unable to hear her thoughts, but he thinks she’ll understand. She always did.

He kisses Dante one last time, and he runs them both through with the Yamato.

V knows what dying is like, but this time, he’s not alone. This time, they go together. This time, it’s right.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry, Yamato.
> 
> This fic also has a [twitter post](https://twitter.com/tonytears/status/1178105076461776903).
> 
> (I was first inspired on how to finish this by the lovely [neonthrones'](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonthrones/) art!)


End file.
